The attack is serious enough to cause the departure of all expatriate employees of the African Development Bank (AfDB). Its president, Akinwumi Adesina, in a personal note dated December 19 made public the following day, announced “to immediately withdraw all international staff from Ethiopia” following “the recent violation of diplomatic protocol and the attack perpetrated by Ethiopian security forces against two ADB international staff members.”
This departure, hasty and unprecedented, is embarrassing for Addis Ababa, also the seat of the African Union. The withdrawal of bankers from the ADB comes less than two months after the attack on its director in the country, Abdul Kamara, and one of his assistants, John Bosco Bukenya. The affair began on October 31 when Abdul Kamara went to the Ethiopian Ministry of Finance to demand payment of the annual contribution that the country, like all others on the continent, must pay to the financial institution. At stake, around 4.8 million euros, but the discussions, usually cordial, between Abdul Kamara and the minister, Ahmed Shide, then became heated.
The same day, shortly after the meeting at the ministry, Abdul Kamara and John Bosco Bukenya were violently attacked in their respective company cars as they were returning home. They were beaten by men in plain clothes, put into cars without license plates and “detained for hours without charge or official explanation” in an unknown location in Addis Ababa. Their release, the same day, will only come after a call from Akinwumi Adesina to the Ethiopian Prime Minister, Abiy Ahmed.
The latter will go in person to Abdul Kamara’s home in the following days to try to put out the fire and encourage him to stay in Ethiopia. But the two ADB employees, their faces still swollen, left the country. According to a source close to the Ethiopian government, the national director of the AfDB recognized his attackers among the bodyguards of the Minister of Finance.
Scam
Exasperated, the institution urged the Ethiopian authorities to shed light on the incident, in a note verbale sent on November 6. It will remain unanswered. Akinwumi Adesina then decided to travel in person to Addis Ababa on November 22 to urge Abiy Ahmed to resolve the affair before it came to light. “The AfDB remains particularly concerned that the Ethiopian government has, to date, not shared with the Bank any reports or details of the investigations into the incident,” he said, almost a month later , to justify the withdrawal of its international staff.
